Welsh cycling star hopes for repeat performance as she seeks to match last
year's haul of four medals

Wales’s defence of their Six Nations crown may be stuttering but Becky James, their cycling star and one half of the country’s most celebrated sporting couple, is hopeful that she will be able to make a good fist of defending the four medals she won in Minsk 12 months ago when this year’s Track Cycling World Championships start in Cali, Colombia, this month.

James exploded onto the scene in Belarus last February, winning both the sprint and the keirin titles as well as picking up bronze medals in the team sprint and 500m time trial.

The Abergavenny-born cyclist said there was no question of setting her sights any lower this time around despite the return of Australia’s reigning Olympic sprint champion Anna Meares.

“We all race to win,” James said. “We all go into every racing wanting to win it. I’m always going to have that drive. Of course, I would love to win it again but I know it can’t happen every time.

“I don’t even know what to expect this year. I’m not putting any downer on why I won four medals last year but people were getting back in from the Olympics. I think it’s going to be much harder this year. I just want to go out and do my best.”

James, 22, was speaking this week during a break in training at the National Cycling Centre in Manchester, where her boyfriend, George North, the Wales and Northampton wing, was watching proceedings.

A dedicated rugby fan, James admitted that it had been hard for North with the Welsh rugby team stuttering to a win against Italy in their opening Six Nations match before losing 26-3 to Ireland in Dublin last weekend. Their hopes of a becoming the first team to win the title outright for three years in a row are still alive, though, and James said that it was probably a good thing that she was travelling to Colombia on Thursday ahead of Wales’s next clash against France at the Millennium Stadium on Friday night.

“I think I’m better luck when I don’t watch,” she said. “When you lose, it’s always hard. I can relate to him, though, and when I moan about how I’m feeling, he knows the right things to say to pick me up. He has to go through that. If it was a ‘normal’ person, they might not believe what you’re saying. It reassures me.”